Master Splinter meditated for the better part of that day. Leonardo was forced to join his brothers in some activity. With Raph, he would race through the woods, wings clipping the bushes sometimes. Mikey insisted that they should cook together, though everyone knew that Leo was terrible with anything remotely having to do with something in kitchen, other than tea. He was the best tea-maker in the family. Don would just sit with him, and they'd talk about inventions the brother was hoping to make, with Leonardo pointing out flaws or possible hardships with the construction. In this way, Leo was kept busy until the evening, when Sensei emerged from his room.
"My sons, please gather around me," he ordered, kneeling in their living room turned dojo/meditation room. Leo was with Mikey at the time, and his orange brother cuddled into the leader's wing when they were both kneeling respectively. Raph and Don sat next to each other, on Mikey's other side.
"I have communed with the Ninja God," Master Splinter said quietly. "He has refused to take back the offer binding Leonardo. However, He has agreed to release his soul. He has agreed knowing that, if you were to go back on your word, Leonardo, you would go to Him and confess. If you should not do this, he would reclaim your soul and you in the process."
"I see," Leo whispered, looking at his hands. "There is no alternative soul in my stead, Master Splinter?"
"None," their Sensei promised. "But to receive a soul you have long lived without will be hard, Leonardo. Your body may reject it as not your own and would cast it – and by extension, yourself – into the Void."
"I understand and accept, Sensei," Leo insisted. "When will He be expecting me?"
"Anytime you wish to bring back what you have given so selflessly." With a bow of farewell, Master Splinter stood and walked back into his room, closing the door softly. Sighing, Leo wrapped his wing around Mike even more securely.
"Whatcha gonna do, bro?" Mikey asked, patting Leo's wing around him.
"Do? We're gonna get his soul back, that's what we gonna do!" Raph ordered, glaring at their leader. "Aren't we?"
"If you so wish," Leonardo mumbled. "But I do not know if you three can reach this plane of existence. You may have to wait here for my return, hopefully soul-ful."
"We will try," Don argued. "And we cannot do it here."
"No," Leo agreed. "I will take you to a place where we can reach Him easier."
"Where?"
"It is a two-day hike from here, but it will serve us for now. I will inform Master Splinter. And then we should rest."
Raph nodded, a rare thing for him to accept Leonardo's words without a fight. Don helped Mike stand up, then they both gave their big brother a hand to his feet. Leo's wings looked dry again, Don noticed.
"Leo, how do your wings feel?"
"Fine," the blue-bandana-ed turtle said carefully. "Why?"
"They look dry."
"Hm. Well, they are a little sore. Maybe I can enlist your help again?" Leonardo almost never admitted to being hurt, nor would he come down from his high pedestal to accept his brothers' help much. Don felt like crying from joy and sorrow at the same time.
"We'd love to," Mikey assured him. "Maybe Donnie can even make an invention that does it for you."
"Hm. Now there's a possibility." Don wandered off, his eyes distant with the equations and mechanical information running through his head.
Leo accepted this as an answer and turned towards Master Splinter's room. Before he could open the door, however, Raph put a hand on his shoulder.
"Bro… be careful," he finally said, stepping back. Leo knew that Raph was scared, but he was not one to admit it to anyone, least of all himself.
"Since when am I not?" Leonardo teased, stepping away and looking at the door. "Get some rest. We leave tomorrow, early."
"Yes, Fearless," Raph ground out mockingly.
Smiling, the leader of the teenage mutants stepped into Master Splinter's room.
"Sensei. We have decided on a course of action," Leonardo started. Master Splinter opened his eyes and gestured for his eldest to kneel on the mats in front of him. "We will go to a place where I can easily reach Him. My brothers will accompany me and try to follow my mind to this place. Would you deem it worthy to stay here, or would you prefer to join us?"
"My old bones cannot keep up," Master Splinter sighed ruefully. "The adventure is yours. Keep your brothers safe, Leonardo."
"I shall, Sensei. Thank you." Standing, Leo bowed gracefully and walked out silently.
"Be careful," the rat Sensei whispered, bending his head down and looking into the flame of the candle flickering in front of him. "And good luck."
The next morning, after Raph and Don had managed to drag a sleepy Mikey out of bed, Leo was leading his brothers through the forest. Mikey was cracking jokes on Raph's behalf, and they were occasionally shooting off the trail, Mikey running from a steamed Raphael.
About the fifth time this happened, Leo chuckled to himself as Don sighed with exasperation. "I can't believe it, Leo," Don confided. "I mean, you'd think Mikey would be a little more somber."
"This is his way of dealing with what is happening," Leonardo explained. "Besides, it'll have them both ready for sleep when we stop tonight."
Donnie made an affirmative noise in his throat just as Mike came back and hid in Leo's wing.
"Hide me," he whispered. Chuckled, his elder brother complied, lifting the littler one in his wing and tucking him away behind his shell.
Suddenly, Raph burst in through the bushes and glared around. "Where is he?"
"I don't know," Don drawled. "He headed off that way." Waving vaguely at another clump of bushes, Don amazingly kept a smile from his face. Grumbling about how Mike was so dead, Raph stormed off again, twirling a Sai in one hand and pushing through the bushes with the other.
"Is he gone?" Mikey's timid voice asked, poking his head out from Leo's wing. "Whew." Mike looked up suddenly. "You know, last time your wing was kinda shaking from holding me up. Now it's stronger. And you look like you've grown a couple inches."
"It's possible," Leo replied neutrally, munching on a trail bar. "What?" he asked when his brothers stared at him.
"My theory was correct," Don exclaimed. "You are growing to match your wings!"
"Hm." Leonardo didn't seem interested; he was digging through his pack, probably looking for something else to eat.
"We should have packed more food," Don groaned. "You'll be eating more than all four of us combined now."
"I can hunt," Leo said, his tone non-committing. Mike's jaw dropped.
"As in… deer?" he whispered, snuggling closer.
Leo's eyes widened. "No!" he objected, looking uneasy at the thought. "Forage, more like. For grasses and berries. It's spring; there should be plenty, especially where we're going."
"Gotcha!" Raph suddenly roared, leaping from a bush. Mikey squealed and latched onto Leonardo's back as Raph thundered closer, his Sai out and twisting. Leo looked around, saw nothing to run into to get rid of Raph, and opened his wings decisively.
"Hang on, Mikey!" he shouted, then drove his wings down, blinding Raph and Don and launching into the air with a shouting turtle clinging to his back. "Catch me if you can!" he shouted humorously at Raphael, who growled loudly at them.
"Watch me, O Winged One!"
"I like it!" Leo yelled back, shifting so Mike could get a better grip.
"Dude! This is awesome!" the orange-banded turtle gasped, looking around. "You can see for miles."
"Yes," Leo agreed, looking back at him. "And it is the freedom I love."
"I can see why!" Mikey breathed in at the beauty of the forest surrounding them. Leo veered right and left, his arms crossed. Mike could see for miles, until the mountains sprang up to the north. He even thought he could see the black cloud over New York, but that could be rain clouds or something.
"Get your butt down here, Leo!" Raph's enraged bellow sounded pissed and Mikey grimaced. They would be getting it tonight, when Leo landed for some dinner.
"You okay back there?" Leo asked, twisting as a branch launched itself at them, flying from Raphael's hands with deadly accuracy. However, Leonardo avoided it with his usual grace.
"Perfectly fine, but I think that we'll be in trouble tonight when we land," Mike guessed.
"Who said we're landing?"
"W-What?"
"I can sleep on the wing. Can you hold on through your sleep?"
"I'd much rather land, Leo, if that's okay." Mikey looked down; it was quite a ways to the ground below, and he didn't want to fall off if he did let go in his sleep.
"Okay, but you're not to complain when Raphael kicks your butt. And I think I'll stay in the sky. I can act as a lookout then."
"Um, if you're sure."
"I am," Leo smiled.